{"id":3113,"date":"2017-12-28T11:34:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T02:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hepatitissa.asn.au\/blog\/?p=734"},"modified":"2024-06-03T21:55:05","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T12:25:05","slug":"reaching-out-looking-for-baby-boomers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hepatitissa.asn.au\/communitynews\/2017\/12\/reaching-out-looking-for-baby-boomers\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching Out to Baby Boomers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hepatitis Australia is currently developing a campaign to reach baby boomers and other community groups who may have been missed in past hepatitis C awareness raising efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost eight out of ten people living with hepatitis C are not current injecting drug users. Although the majority of Australians who acquire hepatitis C did so through unsafe injecting, 67 per cent (124,590) of them are no longer injecting drug users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close to 230,000 people were living with hepatitis C at the end of 2015. Of these, 11 per cent (25,000) were born overseas in regions of high prevalence and almost seven per cent (16,000) contracted the virus through transfusion of unscreened blood and blood products, unsterile medical procedures, or mother-to-child transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These numbers, presented in the Reaching Out: Part 1<\/em> report from Hepatitis Australia, suggest that a vast majority of those who need to be reached for testing and treatment are not necessarily engaged with the usual services where such information is being disseminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reaching Out project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health. Its brief is to \u201cdevelop and deliver general education and awareness on hepatitis C, available testing and treatment options to individuals with hepatitis C who have either not injected drugs or have done so in the past but no longer identify as a person who injects drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project does not suggest that people who inject drugs were any more or less deserving of access to treatment than any other group. Rather, it indicates that if Australia is to eliminate hepatitis C by 2030, there need to be ways of getting the test and treat message out to the diverse group of people who live with hepatitis C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part one of the three-stage Reaching Out project looked at estimates and projections of people with hepatitis C in Australia as well as the demographics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The report identified key non-injecting user communities who may have higher prevalence of hepatitis C. They include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n